than Roman sway, and a resistless power to render the interests of all other states as subservient to its own, as those of her Cisalpine allies. The forest that harbours one wild cat, should breed many squirrels. Ambition like that of France, requires, for its daily sustenance, tameness like that of Spain or Holland: if all her neighbours were like Britain, where could this royal tigress find prey?

So far, indeed, is the attention paid by Americans to the affairs of Europe from being a subject of reproach, that, on the contrary, no period of history will be deemed more worthy of study by our statesmen, as well as our youth, than that of the last twelve years.

IN France, we behold the effects of trying by the test of experience the most plausible metaphysical principles, in appearance the most pure, yet the most surprisingly in contrast with the corruption of the national manners. Theories, fit for angels, have been adopted for the use of a multitude, who have been found, when left to what is called their self-government, unfit to be called men; as if the misrule of chaos or of pandemonium would yield to a little instruction in singing psalms and divine songs; as if the passions inherent in man, and a constituent part of his nature, were so many devils that even unbelievers could cast out, without a miracle, and without fasting and prayer. By stamping the rights of man on pocket handkerchiefs, it was supposed they were understood by those who understand nothing; and by voting them through the convention, it would cost a man his life and estate to say, that they were not established.

ON grounds so solid Condorcet could proclaim to the enlightened, the fish women, and the mob of the suburbs of St. Antoine, all disciples of "the new school of philosophy;" Mr. Jefferson could assure Thomas Paine; and even the circumspect Madison could pronounce in congress, that France had improved on all known plans of government, and that her liberty was immortal.

EXPERIENCE has shewn, and it ought to be of all teaching the most profitable, that any government by mere popular im

pulses, any plan that excites, instead of restraining, the passions of the multitude, is a despotism: it is not, even in its beginning, much less in its progress, nor in its issue and effects, liberty. As well might we suppose, that the assassin's dagger conveys a restorative balsam to the heart, when it stabs it; or that the rottenness and dry bones of the grave will spring up again, in this life, endued with imperishable vigour and the perfection of angels. To cure expectations, at once so foolish and so sanguine, what can be more rational than to inspect sometimes the sepulchre of French liberty? The body is not deposited there, for indeed it never existed; but much instruction is to be gained by carefully considering the lying vanity of its epitaph.

THE great contest between England and France, also, shews the stability and the resources of free governments, and the precariousness and wide-spreading ruin of the resort to revolutionary means. We shall not, therefore, hesitate to present, from time to time, the most correct and extensive views we can take of events in Europe.

We have made these observations, and we address them with the more deliberation to the good sense of the citizens, because it has been a part of the common place of democratick foppery to say, what have we to do with Europe? we are a world by ourselves. This they have said a thousand times, while they told us the cause of France was the cause of liberty, and inseparably our cause. Every body knows, that the mad zeal for France was wrought up with the intent to influence American politicks; and it did influence, and yet influences them. A trading nation, whose concerns extend over the commercial world, and whose interests are affected by their wars and revolutions, cannot expect to be a merely disinterested, though by good fortune it may be a neutral, spectator. Unless, therefore, we survey Europe, as well as America, we do not "take a view of the whole ground." And if we must survey it, and our interests are concerned in the course of foreign events, it is obviously important that we should understand what we ob

serve, and separate, as much as possible, errour from the wis dom that is to be gleaned by experience.

We invite our able patrons and correspondents to assist us in our labours; and to exercise their candour, if, at any time, we should present an imperfect or mistaken view of European affairs we shall not wilfully misrepresent.

FOREIGN POLITICKS. N° II.

GREAT BRITAIN and France are the primary nations; it is evident, that all the rest play a subordinate and secondary part. The French adopt this opinion, and call France, Rome, and Great Britain, Carthage. If this similitude were exact, Britain would sink in the contest. But the British government is more stable than that of Carthage; and, therefore, faction is a little less virulent and a great deal less powerful. Besides, the British superiority on the seas is more clearly, as well as more durably established, and more effectively displayed, than that of Carthage. The naval art was rude and imperfect in ancient times; and those, who then understood it best, were little the better for that advantage. Duillius, the Roman consul, gained a naval victory with mere landsmen. The reason was, that the ships of war were rowed alongside their antagonists, and being grappled firmly together, the combat was maintained, as in fights on land, by a body of soldiers on each side. This being the ordinary event of a seafight, no wonder the Roman soldiers, whose valour was the steadiest and the best trained in the world, prevailed over the mercenaries of Carthage. Every thing is different between England and France. So superiour are the English seamen to the French, so little now depends on the number of men, and so much upon naval art, that the crowd of Frenchmen on board their vessels are rather an incumbrance, than an effective force. There is seldom a seafight, in which the French escape, although their crews are far more numerous than those of their conquerors. Great Britain, too, enjoys a durable superiority.

There must be commerce, before there will be seamen ; there must be a stable government, before there will be a general spirit of enterprise and industry to create commerce. The hands of labour will be weak, while its earnings are exposed to rapine, as in France. It will be an age or two, before that nation will get rid of her military tyrants and her revolutionary spirit; and, till she does, her prosperity will be precarious, and her naval power will be displayed, like that of Turkey, by forcing awkward landmen on board ships. Despotism will waste men and wealth, and in vain, to imitate the spontaneous energies of industry and commerce, fostered by a free and stable government. It may be added, that a naval power is exerted with infinitely more effect now, than it was in ancient times every nation almost is now vulnerable in its commerce and in its colonies; the ruin of these produces a decay of the revenues and resources for war.

Ir then France affects to be Rome, she will not find in Great Britain a Carthage. Nay, even in the military spirit of her people, Britain, with the exercise of one brisk campaign, would not be found inferiour to her boastful antagonist, The campaign in Egypt evinces, that Englishmen can be good soldiers, as well, as seamen. Carthage, on the contrary, was too much torn by factions to maintain a good infantry of her own citizens: she hired strangers. But her cavalry, as that was not a despised service, like the infantry, but attended with honour, was excellent, and so superiour to that of Rome, that the Numidian horse, under Hannibal, won every battle in the open plains.

CARTHAGE was rich, and England is richer; Carthage was called free, England is really so; and if the government of Great Britain were either a democracy or a despotism, it, in the first case, would have been shivered to pieces by faction, and in the latter, by France, within the first four years of the None but free governments are stable; and none that are purely democratick are free. We hope, that publick opinion will so effectually counteract the seduction and the threatened preponderance of a violent jacobin administration, that our

war.

own government, so wisely and happily combined, and so well adapted to our circumstances and sentiments, will be found, after some trials and agitations, to be both stable and free.

In point of resources, it does not appear, that Britain experiences any want; nor that France has, except in the violence of force and tyranny, any sort of security for a supply. It was foretold years ago, that Great Britain was to be ruined and beggared, and must have peace if she took servitude with it. The opposition assured the nation of the event; yet time has confuted these predictions; wealth goes on augmenting; credit is the steadier for the shocks that have waved its branches,. but could not stir its roots. The war is chiefly naval; and the seamen are now formed, and indeed have grown up in the war, in sufficient numbers. The expenses, great as they are, are not increasing, nor are they lavished in Germany, as they were in 1794 and 1795. A long war creates a sort of commerce for itself, and, as it were, makes a part of its own means. There cannot, therefore, exist a doubt, that Britain is able to continue the war. Her land never produced more; and its products never before were worth so much. Her industry never was greater; and the demands for its fabricks were never so little divided with competitors. Her tons of shipping and her trade are greater than at any former period. Her capital is doubled; and it is as sure to create employment, as employment is to accumulate capital. These are the fountains of wealth, and they flow with an unexhausted and progressively increasing stream. France is more nearly beggared by revolution, and Spain by the pride and laziness of her people, than Great Britain is by the war. It is a great evil to a nation to be obliged to exert all its energies to preserve itself from French fraternity; but it would be an evil a hundred times greater to fall under it.

THE proper test of the justness of these observations is not, that they may appear to offend against some popular prejudices, or that the jacobin gazettes will interpret them into the most abominable meanings: no one expects, that the jacobins will content themselves with the truth on this subject. Inqui